On Rad's Radar? - Internet Archives

The Incumbent Mindset

2012-05-10T18:02:28Z

I'm heading to NYC next week to attend Seth Godin's seminar. It is always worth the trip to me. From his Domino Project newsletter today, a little insight:

"It happens to just about every industry, from hard drives to furniture--the insurgents, coming up from the bottom of the market, had an incentive to refine their techniques, engage with their customers and innovate. The incumbents, saddled with much higher costs and less innovation, watched themselves go bankrupt, one by one."

Can you say China? HUAWEI? Vonage? 8x8?

Every market gets disrupted. The Internet has been the greatest tool of disruption. Think about Netflix and Google Apps.

"Instead of working hard to keep their share of a shrinking pie, or working even harder to make sure the industry stays as is, I think the most essential thing legacy ~~book industry~~ players can do is set up independent ventures with great people and little interference and work really hard to put themselves out of business by starting at the bottom, not by reinforcing the top."

Some ILEC's like Windstream, TDS and CenturyLink have used acquisitions as a way to counter-balance disruption that broadband and cellular have done to the market. M&A will only get you so far.

We are already seeing where Live365/Office suites have become a commodity. VoIP is certainly sold as a commodity. Hosted PBX is probably next. Any time you can automate it, someone will come along, with less costs, and undercut your price. The Incumbents will have to take the hit just to stay in the game. Look at CLEC's and the T1 market. The cablecos are disrupting the T1 market. Next it will be MPLS.

It will be skill set, human talent, integration, customer care, and WOM that will set your product offering apart from the rest of the crowd.

That Seth Godin always gets my mind going.

EarthLink's Sweet Spot

2012-03-14T19:53:22Z

I learned a few things at the EarthLink training today in Tampa. EarthLink has 175K business customers and about 3 Million consumers, most of them dial-up customers, providing $20M in free cash flow per month. So of the $1.3B in annual revenue, about $500M is dial-up. ELNK has 4 data centers - Columbia, SC; Rochester, NY; Marlborough, MA; and 55 Marietta.)

The first (or 70+ slides) shows that Pipe is the foundation for Managed Security and other services. However, despite having 28,000 miles of fiber, they don't want to sell transport on it. Even On-Net gets the response that "This is not our sweet spot".

What is the Sweet Spot? As I wrote here, Multi-Location Multi-Access type across LEC's or cablecos.

The partner portal is in development. The customer portal, called myLink, seems cool they way that you can drill done on customer locations in Google Earth and open a trouble ticket.

Agents in the room, called T1 Slingers, asked about DSL, since EarthLink resells ADSL out of 10K end offices through 12 providers. As a resell service, a 1FB is required. And since neither RBOC is really supporting their copper plant and especially not DSL, it leaves the business DSL customer hanging for days when there is an outage. [See my post about Is DSL Done?] 3G/4G wireless backup is my answer for that. There are cool routers that even do it automatically.

The other question centered around T1. "You just are not going to make a living slinging T1's at $400 any more." PRI's are available east of the Mississippi still, which actually IS an advantage for ELNK. TDM PRI's are still the preferred reliable way to deliver voice to a PBX, especially with alarms, faxes, and elevators.

It was an hour on MPLS. I still find it amazing that almost 9 years after my first MPLS class, we are still presenting the Fundamentals of MPLS. For Agents, it will be about layering on services to the MPLS network. The sticky stuff is value added services.

Retail needs a voice line, some Internet, credit card processing, payroll and data backup. That should actually be a bundle that someone offers. ELNK has the old New Edge AX platform that connects payroll and cc processing to the MPLS Network. Add on a VoIP line and some data backup and there's a bundle. Want to make it stickier? Add network DVR to the service so that those IP surveillance cameras can be viewed from anywhere (and can't be erased locally). Bingo! (Do you have an opening in Product Management? My resume is here.)

The team mentioned POS, Inventory, HR and Loyalty programs. Do you have those on the AX platform? Those would make some excellent sticky add-ons.

"So we have an Internet T1 service that connects you securely to one of 4 data centers, Mr. Prospect. Do you currently have a payroll service? Are you looking to upgrade your POS? Are you worried about security on your credit card data (PCI compliance)?"

That's where the conversation has to go. Even though the customers just want the access - as cheap as possible - Agents will have to steer the conversation to: applications on top of that access (AOTTA).

So back to MPLS with Type II access. Ethernet is delivered over a Type II DS3 from the LEC. T1 is delivered over the ILEC copper pair. DSL is a resell of the ILEC product offering. Then for outliers to attach to the MPLS network, there is an IPSec GRE tunnel with BYOB (bring your own broadband). Blended Access.

EarthLink is a Sprint MVNO, but it is more for 3G access where there isn't DSL to attached to the MPLS. Also, for the MPLS customers that want to have one bill that included cellular.

Something else I learned: ELNK bought STS because Rolla knew the Mark Amarant, CEO of STS, and STS had a reputation for best practices in on-boarding customers in the Hosted PBX realm. That's smart, because Hosted PBX (like VDI, another product that ELNK is rolling out), requires a detailed on-boarding process from pre-sales through post-sale, including mapping extensions to desktops, extension attributes, handset type, employee training and some on-site installation. EarthLink is not selling Hosted PBX as a stand-alone. You have to buy access from ELNK.

So in summary word of the day: "Blended Access".

Key association: Multi-location multi-access MPLS.

ITU Wants to Control the Internet

2012-03-05T04:29:35Z

FCC Commission McDowell is in Barcelona talking about the issue of the UN sponsored ITU wanting to control the governance of the Internet. I think we can all agree that the UN is any more efficient than any government on the planet and has even less enforcement power than the American FCC.

"We are at a crossroads for the Internet's future. One path holds great promise, while the other path is fraught with peril," stated Comm. McDowell. "The promise, of course, lies with keeping with what works, namely maintaining a free and open Internet while insulating it from legacy regulations. The peril lies with changes that would ultimately sweep up Internet services into decades-old ITU paradigms. If successful, these efforts would merely imprison the future in the regulatory dungeon of the past. Even more counterproductive would be the creation of a new international body to oversee Internet governance." [RWW]

What Else Are You Going to Sell?

2012-03-04T23:44:40Z

TDM is running out of runway. Agents have already switched to selling Ethernet, MPLS and SIP Trunking. What else can they be selling?

Back-up, like Conferencing, is a cash cow that Agents just don't sell. From archiving email per federal regulations to backing up laptops, smartphones, databases, customer records, billing and more "in the Cloud", online backup service isn't much different from Google (see Chrome ad) or Apple iCloud. Access to everything you need through an authorized device attached to the Internet is the beauty to Cloud services, but backing up data is vital to business continuity. How long can a business run without billing records or a customer database? Not very long. Think how flummoxed you are when you lose your contacts in your smartphone. Imagine that contact list was your business. That's why backup is important (to your customers). VAR's are already selling different versions of online backup: their own; a white-label from Remote Backup, DriveHQ or LiveDrive; and a resell of Carbonite (who is hugging Agents right now) or Intronis (who loves the Channel) or Anxient or many others. There are some like SugarSync or Mozy that backup your smartphone and your laptop to the same account.

Managed Security - most of the CLEC's (XO, EarthLink, Netwolves, Integra, Cbeyond), the RBOCs and the ILEC's (Windstream and CenturyLink) offer some type of security offering, usually Managed Firewall, IDS (Intrusion Detection Service) and Network Monitoring. As more data moves to the web (Cloud), security will become even more significant, in the form of email and application security, encryption, event and log management, and mobile device management. For example, Reflexion provides hosted email security, archiving and encryption services exclusively through the channel.

Hosting and email services - everyone has a website or blog; everyone has email. Why shouldn't you be offering those services too? XO started out as Concentric Network, a hosting company. This was Cloud before it was called that. XO sells Hosted Exchange and website hosting. Megapath just rolled out the Microsoft suite. Intercall offers Live365. It isn't big dollars, but it is a place to get your feet wet in Cloud and apps.

Managed IT - remote monitoring of servers and desktops - is a VAR service powered by software like Autotask, Connectwise, Kaseya and GFI MAX. As businesses are essentially dependent upon computers and technology to do business, managed IT services become an option when skilled technical support staff are too expensive, churned or unavailable.

A step past, Managed IT is the remote desktop - aka Desktop-as-a-service (a term I dislike) and VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure). In 1999, Wyse terminals were going to replace desktops for efficiency. It didn't happen (except in the POS space.) Now we are trying it again. MSP's offer this service - with a big fat helping of bandwidth. There are big names in this space, including Citrix, VMware, and Microsoft. There are also a number of providers, like IIS Group, who provide VDI through the channel. Navisite, which TWC owns, just chose Desktone as its DaaS partner.

Next to DaaS is HaaS, or Hardware as a Service. Don't ask me how this is different or how it isn't just leasing. Ask Chartec.

There are issues with selling cloud services - like the service provider's (SP's) financial position; redundancy and resiliency of the SP's architecture; SP's ability to scale in terms of on-boarding new customers properly and scaling tech support for end users; the end users' experiences as cloud services will change some business environmental factors; and licensing issues.

That being said, Agents should be surveying their current customers about the needs outlined here. Why? To get a bigger share of the customer's wallet.

Another way to look at it is: the customer is going to shop these services like he shops T1's, broadband, and voice. He might as well pay you to shop them for him, like he does for the telecom stuff. Get in there!

If you liked this, you might like this blog post too:

What about selling Cloud

One addition, I interviewed VAR Dynamics (local boys from Tampa) at ITEXPO. VAR Dynamics is a private-label Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Cloud business apps provider selling exclusively through channels. Apps include Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft SharePoint, Zimbra, BlackBerry BES, email encryption, email archiving and more. There will be cross-over in what a provider sells. Just as VAR Dynamics sells the Microsoft software and email security, CLEC's that you are already familiar with - like XO and Cbeyond - offer a variety of services to sell deep into your customers.

Social Media Channel Integration

2012-02-07T22:38:51Z

An ITEXPO panel on Wed. discussed social media integration in the contact center. Sanjay Popli of LiveOps, Manuel Ramirez of Avaya, and Alex Quilici of YouMail spent 45 minutes talking about social media and call centers.

There are five steps a company needs to take to implement social media strategy in a contact center.

Monitor social channels
Decide on Relevance
Assign employees to tasks
Establish Policies
Design procedure for interacting with the rest of the Org

The contact center could be monitoring for leads, complaints or opportunities on social media platforms. These platforms can include twitter, Facebook, Google+, Yahoo groups, forums, LinkedIn or any of the other thousands of online communities and networks that exist.

It is a way for call center to move from a cost center to a revenue center. Not just by following up on sales leads, but by preserving the brand and reputation of the company.

One item that all panelists agreed upon was that the time for response from a company has shrunk from a day to an hour. It's about speed now.

Another reminder from the panel is that conversations about your service and brand ARE indeeed taking place online (like on DSLReports and GetSatisfaction.com). Ignore it at your own peril.

Monitoring or Listening also includes finding out where your customers are hanging out online. Go where they are.

A final note was that previously most online commenters were anonymous. Today, about 70% are very traceable. That means you can identify them and interact with them. There are many books written about creating raving fans out of disgruntled customers. It is possible online as well.

What is it with Agents and the Web?

2012-01-16T17:48:39Z

When I skim through telecom websites, it is pretty obvious that most telecom companies - agents, masters, VAR's, carriers, ITSP's, ISP's - don't really give the web any love.

The websites are rudimentary - many without an update in the last two years. A majority are filled with marketing buzz speak that does not clearly (and concisely) tell the audience what they do or sell. Why? You have 8 seconds to load a page and tell your story before people bounce. Page views are a nice statistic to chart, but at the end of the day, it is all about leads.

Another thing: what's with Agents not having a Linkedin profile at all or a partial profile? LinkedIn gets indexed by Google nicely. Having a complete profile (with picture) gives you access to possible prospects and partners.

We live in an age where everyone Googles you. If they do, what will they find? If your prospects find incomplete or useless information, you lose credibility. No sale without credibility.

It strikes me as funny that people selling INTERNET, don't appreciate Internet marketing.

UPDATE: According to this article, Company websites top source of new leads. If that is the case: that your website is a top source of leads – have you designed your website to optimize for leads?

The Whole Content System

2012-01-09T21:10:16Z

Yes the whole content system is a mess. Newspapers, magazines, book publishing, music, movies and now TV - all are old school content business models that are in a state of upheaval. Unfortunately, the people in charge of these content systems are fighting the change that is happening - happening in large part because of the Internet - instead of trying to start making changes NOW.

The Arab Spring of 2011 was a similar model: change was coming in the form of popular protests, furthered by social networks and the Internet, fought bitterly and fatally by the regimes in place, but to what end? Many dead and injured BUT CHANGE HAPPENED ANYWAY!

Many thought that after Napster, the music industry would stop being stupid and embrace the new music distribution models evolving. The Industry didn't, but the artists who did - like OAR, Dave Matthews Band and Pearl Jam (to name a few of my favorites) - have been hugely successful and profitable.

Why can't the rest of the Industry see that?

Radio is one way to listen to music, but let's face it, listening to the same 100 songs plus the syndicated DJ's is annoying. Because of consolidation in radio station ownership, the powers that be can only look at the bottom line. Wrong place to look. **Successful businesses think about Employees and Customers **(in that order). From that viewpoint can a successful business model is executed.

Albert Einstein said, "Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value." I take that to mean, "Give Value First and Foremost." All else flows from that.

With SOPA and ProtectIP, the RIAA and the MPAA hope to legislate morals nd protections. Why? Why not just give your customers what they want, the way they want it? Isn't that what a vendor is supposed to do?

After Napster, there were numerous other P2P sites like Limewire that popped up. Then a number of online radio sites, like Pandora, Grooveshark, Spotify, Rdio, and more. All have had some fight with the RIAA over licensing. Now we have Google Music, Amazon Cloud Player and Apple's iCloud, too. Do you see a pattern here? People want to listen to what they want, when they want, where they want, on the device of their choosing.

My buddy suggested that their be a website to donate directly to an artist. For example, you downloaded - legally or illegally - a song or album that you liked so much, you wanted to give some money to the artist. That's not a bad way to do it.

One comedian, Louis CK, who is maybe a B list-er, just made over $1 million in revenue on a comedy show, Live at the Beacon, that he produced and distributed himself online at $5 per copy.

The Internet works as a model for distribution. The content is key. CK proved that. So do many authors who self-produce on Lulu and Kindle. [Maybe the key is micro-payments, which I will define here as anything under $6.]

TechDirt is probably the one website that I read that is on top of the copyright-distribution-legislation issues. In a recent article, TechDirt kind of sums up the consumer thinking that WB (and others in the Netflix fight) don't understand: "It appears that WB is implicitly admitting that the strategy of delaying the rental period of a movie by 28 days has been a total failure, in the decision to increase the delay to 56 days. They're basically admitting that not enough people were "buying" in those 28 days... so they somehow think that doubling the wait will increase the purchases. It won't. If people really want to pay the extra money to buy the DVD, they're likely to do so pretty early on. It's not like they're waiting 50 days in and then saying "gee, I can't rent the movie, so I'll just pay a lot more money than necessary to own an obsolete piece of plastic." " BINGO!

People want to stream their content - video, music, TV, movies, etc. - through whatever device they have - blu-ray, xbox, PS3, Roku, GoogleTV, AppleTV, laptop, tablet, etc. [Same holds true for blogs, magazines, and books.]

TechDirt goes on to explain, "I do believe that [MPAA and RIAA] current strategies of alienating their best customers, relying on government protection, and pretending this is some sort of epic battle between good and evil aren't just doomed to fail, they're actively making things worse for themselves." [Sounds a lot like telco doesn't it?]

I'm not encouraging piracy. I actually despise it. We live in an immediate gratification culture. Vendors have to accept that.

We also live in an age where people expect a lot for free. Facebook is free, but people still bitch about it. So's this blog and same thing. Our Culture has a high expectation. It's about perceived value.

Content is really important. Government has to keep the masses entertained or they will revolt.

However, we have a spiraling problem: content costs a lot to make, while disposable income in America is declining. That combination is a disaster waiting to happen.

Let's look at the NFL. They just raised their fees to the TV channels that carry them by 60-70%! [Alan Quayle has a good piece on it.] So ESPN, which is already the most expensive TV channel for service providers to deal with, will be raising its rates to cover this cost. Even the extra $3.50 is just for one channel. What about all the other channels?

I have a rant about ESPN in general anyway. Are they really a sports channel??? Besides college bowl games and some college basketball, the only sport it televises is Monday Night Football, which had bad games all year. This creates a brand issue for them. PBA, Poker and other non-sport stuff is cheap to produce but it is just filler, since they can't run talk-shows and Sportscenter all day (just most of it). ESPN has the same issue as the music and movie industry: too much looking at profit, not enough good content to warrant the money.

We are seeing cord cutting, because the consumer dollars are decreasing -- and they would rather give up TV than cellphones. Cellphone bills average more than residential line bills used to. For a family of 4, it is easily 4 times what the home phone used to cost. Granted you can do more with it, but dollars are dollars. And with 16% of the population at poverty level start thinking what that means for the service economy engine - and all types of businesses.

You have economic and technological forces working to breakdown old school content systems. It will be interesting to see if any lessons are learned and applied in 2012. I highly doubt it because:

3 Things Agents Need to Look at in 2012

2011-12-30T21:14:19Z

It will be a busy year in 2012 as all the carriers try to synergize their mega-mergers and get their back-office in order so that we can actually place orders.

Besides selling the traditional circuits - POTS, T1, SIP, PRI - there are some interesting things for an Agent to look at in 2012.

M2M is growing. We are seeing that the 3G/4G system is creeping in everywhere - from broadband backup systems to surveillance systems to fleet management to home healthcare monitoring to security monitoring. There are an unlimited number of ways that devices and the wireless network can interact. Think about the Kindle. There is money to be made in M2M.

More wireless but mixed with TEM. If you haven't moved your big accounts to TEM, 2012 may be the year you think about it. Auditing has increased in the last two years as governments (local, county, state) and medium businesses look for ways to reduce the ever-increasing telecom bills. (Cellular/3G/4G is big and growing, which is increasing the total cost of telecom spending.) Telecom Expense Management (TEM) can help accounts that spend more than $5K per month. It also makes the Agent the point person all the total telecom spend. It's a great way to become vital to the organization.

In addition, you can add Mobile Device Management. If a company has more than 250 employees, it likely needs help tracking laptops, data cards, cellphones and the like. There are software platforms for this to make an Agents life easy. This is yet another way to become integral to a clients business. Notice I'm not suggesting selling cellphones, but manage those assets for the business.

Lastly, there is Cloud and Managed Services. I'm going to skip cloud unless you want to sell apps to businesses. If you sell within a vertical, I would suggest that you certainly start selling apps into that vertical, because it will add revenue for you and make you the go-to person for all things IT and Telecom for that Vertical!

In Managed Services, we are seeing a few trends: hacking is increasing; security is lax; IT is pervasive in today's business environment but there is not enough money or staff to handle it all. That's where managed servcies comes in. If the company has a lot of empployees and a small IT staff, managed servcies would be a fit. Things to ask:

"What task would you like to relieve yourself of?"
"What routine task could we outsource to your ISP to free up your staff's time?
"You are consuming a lot more bandwidth, what are you doing about firewall and other security?"
"How are you tracking wireless spending and devices?"
"What would you do if a company laptop was stolen or lost?"
"How much private company data is on a smartphone or laptop? How much access does either device have to your network?"
"Do you backup your data regularly and off-site?"

You have to adjust for the changing times, unless you just want to push pipes. But your customers are under a strain to handle devices, billing, auditing, tracking as well as security and more. You can make some extra money -- and become more than just a sales guy -- if you move beyond the pipes and help your customers with the rest of the story. HUH? They buy those pipes from you for a reason. Help them with that.

Happy New Year!

Is All Broadband Going Metered?

2011-12-05T20:56:30Z

Many rural fixed wireless ISP's meter their service for network management and costs reasons. The spectrum is finite, which means that wireless ISP subscribers can only get a set amount of bandwidth from that tower. The backhaul from the tower would be the other limiting factor.

In cable systems, the backhaul to the neighborhood is the bottleneck. The next bottleneck is the Internet gateway - how big is the pipe to the Internet that the cable system uses locally (and just how congested is it).

The DSLAM is the bottleneck for most neighborhoods. And the backhaul is the next bottleneck. It's tough to backhaul a 48 port mini-DSLAM with 2xT1, but it is done. Often.

As you have seen on the commercials, VZW and Ma Bell limit your mobile data to 2GB and 5GB. Sprint does too, except on your smartphone, but according to reports today, will be stopping that practice and moving to caps as well. T-Mobile has caps.

Ma Bell and TWC both trialed caps on consumer broadband. Supposedly this bombed but we know that Comcast and others have bandwidth caps for consumer broadband.

Now CenturyLink is capping DSL. CenturyLink is announcing the following Excessive Usage Policy (EUP), which will become effective in February 2012:

CenturyLink's EUP applies to all residential high speed Internet customers and is only enforced in the downstream (from Internet to customer) direction. Video services provided by CenturyLink PRISM™ TV are not subject to the usage limits. The policy has the following usage limits per calendar month:

• Customers purchasing service at speeds of 1.5Mbps and below, have a usage limit of 150 Gigabytes (GB) of download volume per month.
• Customers purchasing service at speeds greater than 1.5Mbps, have a limit of 250GB in download volume per month.

This will be one more pinch point for the consumer. Consumers are streaming music, movies, TV, living on social media, and sharing media with their friends. Stores this holiday season are selling TV's and DVD players that are all Internet-enabled to stream GoogleTV, Netflix, HuluPlus, Pandora, YouTube, CinemaNow and more. (Heck, you probably read my rant about all the buffering I go through with BHN.)

Not only that, so many tele-workers are using consumer broadband from home, working in The Cloud (so to speak).

VoIP, web/video conferencing, Skype, Citrix and virtual desktop, VPN and security wrappers, CRM, backup, virus and software updates - that cap will be hit quick in 2012.

The funny thing is that most of it was poor planning on the network operators part. And because they are a slave to The Street, who still see telcos as rate-of-return dividend checks, the consumers will get pinched. So too will providers, when the consumers find out that the backup or the VDI app or whatever is costing them $10 extra a month, it's out. Watch.

Well That Was Unsatisfying

2011-12-02T16:47:51Z

Tuesday night was kind of the last straw. While watching CinemaNow through my LG Blu-Ray player, the movie - 30 Minutes or Less - must have stopped to buffer 10 times and actually stopped 3 times - in 90 minutes!

I called my ISP, BHN of Tampa Bay, which is always interesting. First, they remotely re-boot the modem. Then you call back if that didn't fix anything. Then they make you do a speed test from their local site, which showed 8 MB x 0.8 MB. As I explained to tech support, that test doesn't mean anything except that last mile is good. I'm testing from Tampa servers that are On-Net! Then I tested with the FCC speed test site and DSL Reports test, which all gave different answers. Natch.

So the tech sets an appointment for today. "Maybe it's the modem." The tech shows up, looks at the modem and my router, and has me run a speed test from BHN. It comes back at almost 10MB x 1MB. "We're good here," he says and starts to leave. "What?!" I said. "I'm just the middle man here. The test shows you are getting your speed." with that he left.

The speed test only tests last mile - the controlled loop that is On-Net. The Internet is off net! My issues are that I have congestion to most streaming sites, which means that BHN network management is pretty poor. I don't know if they peer with YouTube or Level3 or Limelight or if they purchase transit from Level3, but that pipe is maxed out.

I get a mailer from VZ thrice a week to move to FiOS.

I pay $141 for triple-play plus an extra IP and the HD DVR. Granted the VZ price will be over $100 with fees, but I will get the NFL Network just in time (BHN doesn't carry it) and maybe an a better Internet experience. Who knows? The downside is that it will take VZ two days, a lot of holes in my walls and 4 pieces of equipment to install it.

Without a bundle, like buying DirecTV and Internet separate, the consumer gets raped. Way more than $100 per month.

I don't mind paying the money --- just give me what I pay for! BHN in 2 years has replaced the set-top box twice and visited 3 other times now. That's expensive for BHN and no fun for me. BHN didn't even try to upsell me to wideband or lightning or anything.

Anyway!

Today, VZW announced that it will buy SpectrumCo.'s 122 advanced wireless services (AWS) spectrum licenses, covering 259 million users, for $3.6 Billion. SpectrumCo. is a joint venture between Comcast Corporation, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks. This deal needs FCC approval.

Does this mean that cable is giving up on 4G? No. According to the BizJournal, the cablecos will become authorized agents to sell VZW products -- and at a future date become wholesale customers (MVNO).

FYI, ISP's are going about data caps the wrong way. Nice article.

FCC's Small Biz Cyber Planner

2011-11-18T17:50:31Z

There is a whole lot of truth to this statement from the FCC: "American small businesses are key drivers of innovation, economic growth and job creation. Small businesses employ more than HALF of all private sector workers, and they have generated about two-thirds of net new jobs over the past 15 years. Small businesses drive innovation, producing 13 times more patents per employee than large firms."

The FCC goes on to explain that "Broadband and information technology is increasingly important to the success of our economy, to jobs and to the future of small business. Broadband connectivity and online business tools are powerful factors in small businesses reaching new markets, increasing productivity and efficiency, and generating economic growth. A recent study found that having a broadband connection makes a $200,000 a year difference in median annual revenues for businesses."

When you couple that with the ever increasing number of hacks - whether for identity theft or credit card numbers or corporate data - cyber-security becomes important. Add IP-PBX and VoIP lines to the mix and security isn't something that should be forgotten or left off due to the budget line expense. But it does. And it has a cost.

The FCC, as part of National Cyber-Security Month, joined with the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and several corporate executives to unveil a new FCC online tool-- the Small Biz Cyber Planner. "The planner is an easy-to-use, free online tool that will create a customized planning guide to help small businesses protect themselves from cyber-security threats."

Symantec and The National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) released results of a survey finding that only 52% of small businesses have a cyber-security plan or strategy. That's not really surprising because most think it won't happen to me. Yet the statistic remains that a new computer attached to the Internet takes less than 20 minutes to be attacked.

"The survey also found 77% of small businesses do not have a formal Internet security policy for employees." This is an example of how you can help your clients by pointing this out and having a discussion about security measures - even simple ones like password management and usage. And as data moves to the Cloud, access security via devices becomes more troubling and requires written policies in place that are closely followed.

3 Bills That ISP's Need to Be Aware of

2011-11-18T17:03:30Z

In DC, there are bills moving through Congress that will affect the ISP business.

The Protect IP Act and the companion Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and H.R. 1981, the ISP Data-Retention Bill.

The ISP Data-Retention bill would require Internet Service Providers such as Comcast or AT&T to retain the personal information of its users for up to 18 months. PC Mag has a nice write up here. It passed House committee in July.

All of these bills come with the propaganda that it is to stop child porn and for national security. Actually, it is to help out the MPAA and RIAA, who want help to stop piracy. Some think that it is a violation of the 4th Amendment, but the US Congress has been chipping away at the Constitution since 9/11 for their money men.

Even Lifehacker is tracking what is going on with SOPA. You might have seen the American Censorship Day emails and facebook status updates. People need to understand that the Internet is a loosely connected network of computers and devices that no one group controls and is based on Trust. Even Peering is based on private agreements. The Internet is a huge communications network that has been running smoothly without government interference. Any disruption, as OpenDNS discusses here, will lead to unintended consequences that will not be good for our service economy. How can we spend $4B on building more broadband networks to build the economy AND mess with the foundation of that very network???

Even Fred Wilson, famous VC, rails against it.

As an ISP, I would suggest that you take a look at these 3 bills - that are moving through Congress!!! - and talk to your Congress Critters!

Juniper, TWC Have a Bad Day

2011-11-07T21:05:38Z

TW Cable had a nationwide outage this morning as reported on twitter and TheVerge. Internet slowdowns and outages were still being reported by Noon Eastern time.

According to the NANOG chatterbox, Level3 & TWC are having the same problem: it appears that Juniper routers are doing a core dump due to a BGP advertisement that triggers a bug. BGP peering causing a number of crashes on the Juniper platform for the last year or so. Unsure if that's related to this problem or not, but the saying one hears frequently is "IPv6 bgp peering isn't as widely tested as the vendors would have you believe"."

I'd use this outage to sell redundancy!!!

Zero Moment of Truth

2011-10-31T20:41:34Z

I hit up the newest gastro pub last night. It's been open about 4 days. There were zero search results on Google about them. Just a flash-based website. It was slow in the pub. The staff was very attentive. The owner and I got to talking. He agrees that a website that is viewable on all mobile devices (including tablets) is important. We talked about all the sites today that you have to watch - GetSatisfaction, Yelp, Chowhoud, Urbanspoon, Metromix, MerchantCircle, Around Me (an iPhone app), OpenTable, Facebook, and the local search sites (Google, Yahoo and Bing). It seems just a bit overwhelming.

Then I read about Google's Zero Moment of Truth by Gary Kim and started reading the book.

From the Google book, "A Zero Moment of Truth is:"

A BUSY MOM IN A MINIVAN, looking up decongestants on her mobile phone as she waits to pick up her son at school.
AN OFFICE MANAGER AT HER DESK, comparing laser printer prices and ink cartridge costs before heading to the office supply store.
A STUDENT IN A CAFE, scanning user ratings and reviews while looking for a cheap hotel in Barcelona.
A WINTER SPORTS FAN IN A SKI STORE, pulling out a mobile phone to look at video reviews of the latest snowboards.
A YOUNG WOMAN IN HER CONDO, searching the web for juicy details about a new guy before a blind date."

How Do You Make it Rain in the Cloud?

2011-10-10T16:12:31Z

Here at Microcorp's One-on-One event, I moderated a panel this morning about various cloud services with Level3 (CDN), Cbeyond (Virtual Servers), Intercall (Microsoft 365/Linc), EarthLink (Security), and PAETEC (Visual Messaging). It's an eclectic mix, but that should tell you that there are many ways to leverage this thing called CLOUD to make money.

The Cloud is really a value for IT services. It's about leveraging the technology and the technical skill set of another company in order to let the business focus on their own finctionality, instead of the tech that might help the business operate.

The move to the Cloud by carriers is due to the lack of margin growth in the primary business of access. It's moving up the OSI stack from Layer 1 (wireless, copper, fiber) to Layer 3 (Internet) to Layer 7 (Apps). As we have learned with the iPhone, people use apps. Apps drive traffic. So if you go after the apps and move them into a data center (into the Cloud!), then you make it possible for the business to have access to that data 24/7 from any where with many devices - laptops, smartphones, etc. That's the trend in the marketplace.

Just to simplify Cloud for you: email, anti-virus, websites (hosting), Salesforce, Amazon Web Services, Google Apps, Gmail, Hosted PBX, conferencing (GoToMeeting, Webex), Skype - are all examples of cloud applications.

The three things driving the cloud trend: ubiquious broadband, the economy, and the fast paced technology space. The economy means that companies have to do more with less (less people and less money). It means that there is cost cutting. Broadband is available in most places - DSL, cable modem, 3G, 4G, WiMax, LTE, satellite, wi-fi. This means you can get access to your data and apps (Gmail, Google Apps, Dropbox, whatever) from any where. Finally, the technology is changing so fast that by the time you install it, the tech is probably almost obsolete. Cloud apps means that you lessen CAPEX and upgrades (like with Microsoft software) are taken care of my the service provider.

There's revenue here. Either you be the one to have the conversation with your customers or someone else will. And they will get those commodity services like broadband, T1 and PRI after they get the cloud services.